Friday, 30 January 2015

Trials Week: Postcard from the European Clinical Trials Network conference in Barcelona

This week, Dr Janet Allen, Director of
Research & Care at the Trust, has swopped frozen England for sunny Spain,
and the European Clinical Trials Network conference as part of the Cystic
Fibrosis Europe meeting. Here’s what’s been going on.

Every
January, the research-active organisations across Europe that represent people
with cystic fibrosis (so the Cystic Fibrosis Trust in the UK) come together to
share experience and knowledge under the umbrella organisation known as Cystic
Fibrosis Europe (CFE). At the same time,
we meet with colleagues in the European Clinical Trials Network or ECTN. This
network was set up by CF physicians to coordinate clinical trials across
selected centres in Europe. By working together, we can increase the number of
trials running in Europe and attract international global companies to bring
their clinical studies to Europe.

It’s the end
of January, so where better to have a meeting than in Barcelona, or more
accurately a town just outside Barcelona:to swap cloudy, windy, cold Bromley for blue skies and a slightly warmer
environment! However, before anyone gets carried away, I can say we have been
stuck in a stuffy room all day and the blue skies have not been seen as we
debate methods to increase access to clinical trials, standardisation of
protocols and better ways of getting protocols adopted through many different
languages. The commitment and passion of the ECTN members to improving access
to clinical trials across Europe is remarkable, especially when I realise that
all the discussions are in English, even though for the vast majority, English
is not their native language.

The ECTN has
been running for a number of years and initially involved 25 centres across
Europe; five of which are in the UK – Belfast, Birmingham, Royal Brompton,
Leeds and Nottingham. The Cystic Fibrosis Trust provided financial support to
help form the ECTN over the last three years.

The ECTN has
been very successful and there are now plans to expand the number of
participating centres by 10. They have been tracking the number of trials and
can show an increase over the last few years. In addition, the ECTN has been
instrumental in assisting in trial design and doing feasibility studies.